Horse Sense

Horse Sense

Horse Sense

TCJpart19 Horses are Good For You

TROUBLED TIMES:
...and how your hooved friends can help x

Horses are indeed the antidote for difficult times.  Just being around them has a calming, in-the-moment effect.  They can help achieve a sense of clarity at times when you feel anything but clear.

My Dad is currently in a coma.  No one can tell us what's wrong with him.  He's just got back from a cruise on the Queen Elizabeth with my Mum, they've been sailing around the Aegean and having a wonderful time.  Then suddenly he got very ill.

Tom & Henry are without a doubt helping me stay calm and keeping me focused.  Because you can't be anything else when you're with your horse. I think I would break if I didn't have those amazing Trakehners to talk to, those big brown eyes to look at and strong necks to hang on to. The one-way conversations, they just listen very well.

And the automatic repetition of doing the yard jobs too, gives me something to achieve without thinking too much, a walk around the fields to poo-pick, all helps. It's what I need.

Tom & Henry are my therapy.

TCJpart 18 Horse Psychology

PSYCHOLOGY:
Lot's gets written about horse psychology, but your own observations are just as important, after all no-one is like you, and no horse is like your horse.  A unique combination of personalities, brings unique qualities to a relationship...

I was just out in the yard with my boys, my plan was to ride them, it's a beautiful breezy sunny cold October morning, but as I brushed the wind got faster and the horses got jumpier.  by the time I got to their tails, it was far too windy to go, so I changed my mind.  I didn't force myself or them to carry on regardless, I don't have ego, I don't think of it as defeat.  Just simply do something else instead.

This made me think about psychology. 

We expect our horses to be ok with everything we ask, to be happy with all the things they have to do, to be calm riding near things that terrify them....why?  Because we certainly are not perfectly balanced are we?  We have things that scare us even terrify us, and no one makes us face these things! So why do we expect our horses to cope? Prey animals are the flightiest creatures and arguably not mentally equipped to cope...they are built to run.

We can be rational.  We can have lengthy conversations, even therapy about the things that frighten us, in the hope that, if we wished it, we might get better at coping.  But humans don't all cope...and neither do horses.

My message, give your horse a break. 

If you're terrified of spiders for example, imagine if you were forced against every instinct in your body, to face them?  Most people would have a melt-down.  All you'd do, as with the rest of us and our fears (and they are mostly irrational aren't they?), is avoid these things, you just wouldn't go near spiders where possible.

Having said all that horses are clever, and they adapt very well and notice everything, that's why they can be spooky.  If you rode past a worrying white flower that bloomed overnight (and wasn't there yesterday), and he's not terrified, just he's noticed it, the more you ride past, the less interesting it will be to him. That's how horses cope, in layers.  Repeating things is key.

Just think the next time you feel you are under pressure to get your horse to do something, or face something, perhaps by someone else who tells you you're letting him get away with certain evasive behaviours, that we allow ourselves these breaks, these failures in our psychology if you like, why is it ok to make our horse do it?  Well, it's not ok.  Give him a break, give him lots of time, he'll decide for himself if and when he'll be happy with the situation. and this way, he'll be happy about it forever, because he's worked it out for himself.

TCJpart 17 Behaviour

GETTING THINGS DONE WITH HORSES:
...any time spent with my boys is emensley enjoyable, I don't have to be on their backs to appreciate the bond between us.

Tom and Henry have a relaxed attitude to their yard, everything important I've taught them to do, gets done here.

 

You will have noticed with your own horse, whether they're Trakehners or not, that they are very nosey.  Tom and Henry want to be part of everything we do.  If we're outside doing things, they both come over to watch.  When the man comes to deliver the hay, speeding around the driveway in his forklift, Tom and Henry are there, heads over the fence, keeping an eye on what's going on!

When Steve the farrier comes, they notice his van, and bring themselves in to be shod, why? Because they love being involved, and he wasn't there 5 minutes ago...something new!!  And Steve has never hurt them or scared them, so they enjoy being with him.

Once when John was in the field doing some repairs to the fencing, they both came over to watch.  Tom making certain John was doing a good job, and Henry grabbing the end of the piece of wood and holding it steady on the workmate so John could cut a straight piece!!  I kid you not, he had the rail in his teeth.  Once he was satisfied John had a grasp in the situation an no longer needed his active participation, he then took the hammer out of the toolkit and ran off with it!! From that day hence, it has now been called Henry's toolkit - it even has a hoofpick in it now and some treats!!! no one but horse-types would believe it!

Whether you have similar stories about your horse or not, you will have undoubtedly grasped that their curiosity is what makes them easy to train, their personalities mean they want to learn.

Work with this, and you'll find a whole new world opens up to you.

Tom is usually calm when I ride Henry, sometimes he even lays down for a nap, Henry of course is the opposite, he'll be charging up and down the fence!

Tom and Henry, like all horses, love to be part of what's going on, so long as it's not scary, but no one is going to ask their horse to try to learn something when he's scared, that would be stupid beyond measure.  I use this facet of their characters for everyday stuff, so every one's life is easier and we're all happy. 

When I shut gates to somewhere, even for a few minutes: to load feed into the feed room from the Landy into the yard, that now becomes the most interesting place to be, and they make it very clear that's the very place they most want to be.  When I'm done and open the gates, they charge in!  So when I want to change fields for example, I just open the gate to the field I want them in, and they can't wait to get there.  There's no headcollar action or leading them EVER from one place to another. I don't have to, they just behave like horses, and I take advantage of it.

I want them somewhere, I shut it up, and wait, they just can't resist!!

There are many opportunities to spend time with the boys here, and I absolutely take advantage of having them at home.

I have mentioned I don't tie Tom and Henry up at all.  When I ride, Henry is in the yard, I brush him, tack up and go.  When I get back, Tom comes over to say hello to his friend he thought he might never see again...well you know horses!! 

You'll notice Henry is just standing waiting for me to finish fiddling about, we are tacking up in this picture, they stand in a different spot to be untacked, and they are creatures of habit.

 
I open the yard gate (shut while I was out riding), and because Tom hadn't been able to come into the yard, that's the place he most wants to be now, and because Henry had been in the yard, being untacked, the field is now the place he wants to be more than life itself!  So, viola, what looks like a brilliantly choreographed swappage of Horses is really just them being them, they swap positions: Henry goes out, Tom comes in. I shut the yard gates and start my pre-ride routine with Tom!!  No leading, no catching, just understanding what horses are like. 

Henry, they love having their photos taken, and I now have several thousand of them....so John tells me!



Remember, the more you understand your horse, simple things like 'catching' become a lightbulb moment.  And I spend a lot of time with mine in the field, I don't just go out with an agenda, I often wander out just to scratch or feed them, so they never have any idea what I'm up to!

Give it a go yourself..you'll be amazed at the response you'll get for your horse, it'll be a 'finally she understands me' moment!!

I love those horses, and these simple things just make sense to me, perhaps because I am simple too! (no comments about this please, that means you Mum!)

TCJpart 16 Trakehners UK Newsletter

Hello fellow Trakehner lovers!

I have just written my first Tom & Henry story for the TRAKEHNER UK Newsletter.  I have started with a little background, and if I am asked to write one every issue (thrice anually), I will endevour to write the amusing stories as they happen, and they happen all the time here at chez Rand.


Anyone familiar with the Holme Grove website will know that Susan publishes letters, stories and photos of her herd progeny, and you can tell by reading them how proud we are sharing our lives with these incredible creatures, and how proud, and justly so, Susan and Barbara are to share the stories with us.


Here is  my first go:

Story for Trakehner UK newsletter

 Hello all fellow Trakehner lovers!

I work in a very creative, high octane, office environment in London.  A Design Room at M&S. My colleagues mostly live locally and so they have cats, which is great because I have 5 of my own and cat stories are very funny!

So it was I was at my desk when I received an email from someone I didn’t know in Kidswear, inviting me to an M&S Horse owners Club Lunch!!! Well you can imagine!!? It's great working here but it just got so much better.  We endeavour to meet every month and all we do – whilst we eat – is talk about our horses and share pictures and stories, its brilliant!

Our members have a variety of equines from thoroughbreds to Irish sport horses, I am alone in my Trakehner ownership.  And while many beloved pictures of coiffure’d horses are passed under my nose, of course I am suitably complimentary, but I can’t help feeling sorry for them for not having Trakehners in their lives – they have such great bums and personalities!

Did I mention Tom and Henry have incredibly gorgeous arses, suspect all Trakehners are built this way, pretty heads, great necks and oh so amazing rear ends!?

Tom & Henry of course, take fame in their strides now so any news from me that more people at work are hearing about them goes by without so much as a sniff.  They recently had their photos taken for HORSE magazine for a safety feature I worked on with them and that was an interesting morning. Plus they star in my blog, which is where it all began with my writing about them.

HORSE magazine interviewed me for a safety feature; the Editor Jo Browne had read my blog and thought my work for road safety was inspiring.  And it only started because I will go above and beyond to protect my boys from anything that might ruffle their manes; I wasn't aiming to be a campaigner. Then she asked me if she could send a photographer to my cottage to take shots of me riding my boys around the village to support the story of safety. Well I jumped at the chance for my boys to star in a three page spread!!!

I took the day off work, my boss didn't really understand but she humoured me. I got my farrier Steve out of his sick bed to come a check their shoes (thank you Steve), I brushed the boys to within an inch of their lives and even cleaned their tack, and I surprised even myself when I remembered how to put it all back together again!

The photographer took some great shots.  My husband John on his bike (because it all started with cycle safety), my friends and neighbours and their son on his bike, all drove and cycled past me.  I was a glowing beacon of illumination head to hoof in hi-viz, so the message was clear, safety. They are the funniest horses, they took everything in their beautiful floaty strides, that Trakehner stride we are all familiar with, and anyone who has seen the November issue will agree they looked gorgeous; well they are sons of Solomon and Prokofiev!

A quick Trakehner question though:

Not sure whether it’s a Trakehner thing, but they eat out of the bin instead of the freshly filled haybars, they bob for apples, they chase the cats around the land, they stand still with no headcollar to get groomed and tacked up, they turn their bottoms to me for a scratch and I know what they want, they’ve trained me!. this seems perfectly normal to me....but I’m getting comments that perhaps Trakehners are just a bit too clever...well we'd all agree with that I’m sure?

Tune in boys and girls next time for 'What Tom & Henry did next'.

Shelley Rand